June 8, 2020 • 19 mins
It was a feeling like no other when the Dream Teamers took the court for a real game in the qualifying tournament in Portland. Hearts stopped when they first ran onto the court together—and, as a matter of fact, so did warm-ups, as the Dream Team competitors ceased layup drills to take photos. The Dreamers were excited to be playing with each other, and it showed in the wonderfully cohesive brand of basketball that they played. But a whole netherworld of tangled business relationships took some joy out of the experience, most demonstrably for Michael Jordan.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is the Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. Welcome
(00:24):
to episode five of the Dream Team Tapes. I'm Jack McCallum.
We have moved from San Diego, where the Dream Team
completed a week of practice, and on to Portland, Oregon,
for something called the Tournament of the Americas, where the
US team had to qualify for the Olympics. Portland was
the capital of the basketball world in the summer of
their beloved Blazers took the Jordan's Bulls to six games.
(00:47):
The NBA Draft that produced Shaquille O'Neal and Christian Latner,
the two college stars who were the only players considered
to join the Dream Team from college, was held there
ten days after the finals ended, and then the Dream
Team arrived for their first official public demonstration of well
worldwide dominance. I would venture to say that all of
(01:08):
us who were around for the weeks of action in
Portland had a great time in that great city. It
was an excellent series. It included the famous Jordan's shrug
game in Chicago, when he hit six first half three pointers,
the majority of them on Clyde Drexler, and at one
point just shrugged the Magic Johnson, who was courtside on
the broadcast team, as if to say, hell, I can't
(01:30):
explain it either. The draft was pretty interesting too. After
the Minnesota Timberwolves selected late number three, there was a
chorus of booze, which prompted Laterner's mother, Bonnie, a sometimes
outspoken woman who like so many moms, loved her son
and wanted to protect him, blurted out to the press,
huh that was the fifty family and friends Shakiel took
(01:53):
with him to Portland. Christian wasn't happy with her. Hey,
we've all been there at one time or another. All
other things about Portland's It had one of the great
all time bookstores, Pals and the peaceful Willamet River, and
one of the all time great bars, the veritable Quandre
hang out for the media who had covered the NBA
Finals and hung around to cover the Dream Team. You
(02:15):
went into the VQ, you ordered a craft beer, and
the bartenders would put on anything you asked. For one night,
it was Stevie Ray Vaughan. One of the overlooked blues immortals.
Stevie Ray has gone now a helicopter crash in Wisconsin
in n hours after he and his band had opened
a show for Eric Clapton and a loss. So is
(02:37):
the veritable quandary, a victim of market forces. Nihil st
at tarranum, nothing last forever. I'm not sure what a
Latin accent should sound like, but that was probably not
a good one. So why were we in Portland? Well,
as I said earlier, the Americans had to qualify since
they had finished third in and the qualifier been scheduled
(03:00):
for March in Brazil, in other words, at a time
when the NBA season was still going on. So the
NBA and USA Basketball arm twisted FIBA into a schedule
change and bought the broadcast rights for somewhere around four
million dollars from a Brazilian who owned them and re
christened the thing the Tournament of the Americas. Now. The
(03:22):
money for the broadcast was put up by the United
States Olympic Committee, which had a surplus from the Olympics
in Los Angeles, which was quite possibly the last games
that made economic sense for a host country. The U
s O c resented it. They were not accustomed to
putting up money for millionaire professional athletes, and that resentment
(03:43):
would prove to be a subplot in Portland's that would
continue through Barcelona because initially, all I say that, you know,
I don't want to be a part of this whole business.
You know, I played a game for the game, for
the batch you had that was totally against profession basketball
to was playing because I knew the business despect there
was coming around. Yeah, and it is hard to get
(04:05):
the true deliberic experience and you're sitting there were about
everybody's making money and you gotta you know, you gotta
please this guy, you know, please his company. Yet it
may not be the same line to what a contract. Okay,
irony alert here Jordan, who at that time was earning
about thirty five million dollars in endorsements and is still,
(04:25):
by the way, earning about a hundred and forty five
million dollars even though he hasn't played since two thousand
and three, talking about the unpleasantness of mixing business and basketball.
But Jordan's and most of the other Dream teamers felt
for the first time in Portland's how many fingers were
reaching into the pie, and Jordan's didn't really need the
(04:46):
Olympics for exposure the way other players might have. It's
not like his profile wasn't amplified by the Dream Team experience,
but it wasn't a major consideration. Here's David Falk, Jordan's
Asian at the time, and the and largely responsible for
creating the Jordan's marketing monster back in you know, gave
(05:07):
him a broader stage and probably set the tone maybe
for moving into other markets, you know, brand Jordan's later
on down the road. But he didn't do it for
marketing reasons. I think they've even enter to the egration.
I knew that it would have a you know, positive impact,
but not a not a major impact. For months, there
had been pitched, behind the scenes battles among sponsors and
(05:28):
retailers trying to make official deals with the NBA to
make money off these guys. And these weren't exactly junior
varsity companies. They were companies like A T and T,
Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Visa. The stakes were enormously high.
The real battles took place over whose likeness could be
put on what product. Remember that all these guys, but Jordan's, Magic,
(05:52):
Barkley and Bird in particular, had all kinds of endorsement
deals and contracts themselves. What would they be violating by
wearing or endorsed s a uso C sanctioned product that
was in competition with one of their personal sponsors? To wit,
what Jordan's Mr Nike tacitly endorsed reebak Ah. Jordan and
(06:13):
his agent David Falk thought they had a deal worked
out that would take care of it. But the deal,
in the immortal words of William Goldman, the great Hollywood screenwriter,
was apparently set, just not set set. We'll see how
that plays out. In Barcelona, the players were astounded at
what their responsibilities were, particularly in the area of signing basketballs.
(06:36):
A couple of them told me they signed literally thousands
of balls because each deal seemed to come accompanied by
signing basketballs, which always struck me as crazy because if
you've seen a pro athletes sign at least most of them,
you can't make out their signature from ancient sanskript. Here
is Steve Mills on how bad the situation actually was.
(06:57):
At that time. He was working for the league and
was in charge of special events for the Dream Team
and was a close confident of many of the players.
The biggest that actually remember that I think almost blew
up the team was the issue was sort of the
literal actual with the usc UM and was the first
(07:18):
time when there's same there as a woman I believe
who who was an act was an actuate but at
a different sport. It was one of the U s
C at the time, and came in and talked to
the players their marketing obligations and the things they couldn't
do and the thing they could do. And here's Barkley
on the same subject. Was they got angry at h Hey,
(07:44):
we came here, We're not getting any money. And you know,
Clil Michael is the man at that point as far
as endorth a Golden night, and we have a meeting
and a couple of representative like coming him like, hey,
don't be an asshole, like you know how Michael, excuse me. See,
(08:05):
the Dream teamers were supposed to get some kind of
share of all the revenue pie and a playing salary,
something that added up to around seventy five dollars to
the best of anyone's memory. In other words, pocket change,
but hey, pocket change his pocket change. I tore my
car apart the other day looking for seventy eight cents.
(08:26):
But in step the ultimate diplomat, Dave Gabbett, who himself
had been armed twisted to get the players to give
up that money for the good of the country and
the coffers of USA basketball. Here's Larry Bird. Dave came
to me with the idea and get out of here,
you're crazy. Just more Bertie, and went through the whole fame,
(08:46):
and he talked to Magic. Of course Magic Sill's Larry
doing it. And he went to Michael, Michael, I'm in,
and he went the other guys, and Day came to
me today, we're okay, enough enough, let's it away from
business and talk about what else was going on in Portland.
A great introductory party by Nike for one thing. I
(09:07):
brought along my wife and two sons who were fifteen
and twelve, a great fan age, and introduced them around
to the point that I wasn't being an ass and
as usual, got the best response from Charles Barkley. You
seem like nice boys, Barkley said, putting his arm around him.
So with a father like you have, I would run
away right now. One of the subplots was how nice
(09:28):
this was for Clyde Drexler, who was among the last
two Dream teamers picked and was only a couple of
weeks removed from getting tortured by Jordan in the finals.
No matter how much he hated it, and he hated it,
Clyde could never quite get passed being the poor man's
Michael Jordan's and his team could never quite get past
(09:48):
being talented but not a closer. It had started in
the ninets against the Pistons and was solidified by the
six game lost to the Bulls in ninety two, and
direct Or took endless amounts of crap from his fellow
Dream teamers. Here's Bird, I feel sorry for him some
days in the basket sort of telling played on the
Dumas team. Still, the team was tight. Relationships were starting
(10:13):
to build, the most unlikely being a friendship between Bird
and Patrick Ewing. They were together so much that the
team started calling Ewing Harry so they could brand them
Harry and Larry. In every single interview I did for
the Dream Team. Somebody brought this up. The players got
such a kick out of it. It was in Portland,
also that the real Alpha Dog started a late night
(10:35):
ritual of a card game called Tunk, which Barkley described
as an old Negro game from the South. The main
players were Barkley, Jordan's Magic, and Pipping. So if there's
any Tonk fans out there, just think how great it
would have been to get in that game. Then again,
you would have needed to bring money, lots of money.
(11:05):
In the dream Team second game, in the Tournament of
the America's Stockton and Michael Jordan collided on a defensive sequence,
and though not many people saw it, Stockton came away
with an undisplaced fracture of the right fibula. Most everybody
else thought, well, so what, Stockton's great, but the Dream
Team hardly needs him. But Chuck Daily, the Prince of Pessimism,
(11:28):
who was already imagining if he would have to appear
before Congress the Dream Team lost a game, was worried
about the point guard position. Chuck honestly wasn't sure that
Magic could handle the load alone, particularly defensively ridiculous in
retrospective course, But and more, much more than was made public,
(11:48):
Chuck really thought that Stockton should be replaced. Just got
the actually down to eating us. He brought baplace. Daily
was even a little pissed at Stockton because he clung
to his spot. So Chuck convened a meeting. Okay, at
dinner meeting at a great Italian restaurant in Portland. Matt Dobek,
his trusted public relations man, was there, and so was
(12:11):
assistant p J. Car Lessimo, who was in charge of restaurants.
P J was still is one of basketball's great restaurant guys.
You gotta have guys that know every great restaurant, No,
every owner and major d at every great restaurant. Anyway,
the subject of the meeting was should we replace Stockton?
And if we decide we should, who are you going
(12:32):
to call? Here's the late Matt Dobek can make it work.
We're going to call Joe. How in case you didn't
get it, that Joe was Joe Dumars. So there it
was the specter of Isaiah Thomas all over again. Daily
could not get out from under it. And the best
guest from Matt, and he told me this before he died,
(12:53):
was that Chuck would have given the call to Joe Dumars,
not Isaiah Thomas Jordan for one was watching these developments
with interest and some degree of ankst. When doctor now,
I'm already committed ship. You know, I checked into the
saying anything to you know, idea, you're gonna keep it
(13:16):
the way it wants to take. But he came to
do so, he had to leave it. He had to
keep stocking on the team even when it broke legs
to the place. Eventually, Chuck decided to let it go,
take the time until Barcelona for Stockton to get better,
And I was glad. I love Dumars as a player,
as a person too, but I'm glad it didn't happen.
(13:38):
That would have just been too cruel. Isaiah passed over
not once, but twice, and for a teammate who really
wasn't even a point guard. And for Chuck it was
actually better from a playing time standpoint. Since Bird's back
was hurting so bad and there were always other assorted injuries,
not having stocked and available at all made it easier
(13:59):
on daily to slide players in and out. One more
thing about Isaiah, we never got along all that great.
He was one of the few people who turned down
an interview requests for the Dream Team book. He told
me not long ago at a Hall of Fame gathering
that he thought I had never treated him or the
Pistons fairly in print, but then he shook my hand.
I respected him for that, and I respected the way
(14:22):
he handled the Dream Team snub. One of the things
he did around the time of the selection process was
called John Stockton's father. Here is Stockton talking about it.
I think I should have been and I was the
clear artt I guess you know what people thought. He
knit And in case you didn't get it, at the end,
there John said, and he called my dad. That means
(14:45):
Isaiah Thomas called up John Stockton's father. And when Stockton
was inducted into the Hall of Fame, incidentally, the player
he chose to walk up with him to the stage
was one Isaiah Thomas. Okay, is there anything else I've
(15:08):
forgotten about Portland'? Oh? Yes. There were actually other teams there,
and there were basketball games. For the record, these were
the other competitors, in order of how they finished behind
the US were Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Cuba,
and Uruguay. It was a gas interacting with the players
(15:30):
on the other teams from the beginning. They just seemed
to get it. They just understood that they were fodder
for the Dream Team stand ins, second bananas, and they
were fine with it. They embraced it. They understood that
when the US played, it was less like a traditional
athletic competition and more like free form theater with a
set ending. You were going to get your ass kicked,
(15:52):
but let's do some improv along the way that we
know why we're here. Attitude was best exemplified by Oscar
Schmidt of Brazil. You have to understand this, Oscar was
a legit player. He was the best player in the
tournament not on the Dream Team, and at one point
in his career several years earlier, many scouts believe that
(16:13):
he was a legit NBA prospect. And here was Oscar
talking before the game, and well, let's called his goals
for the Tournament of the Americas. For Larry Party is
my idold Michael Jordan, Jason Solder, I would like to
have all their age. What a rallying cry. Let's go
get their autographs. But look, we got it, we got
(16:35):
it back then. You weren't going to beat the Dream Team,
So go with the flow, enjoy the experience. I know
I did. The one moment that I remember more than
all others in that summer was the first time the
Dream Team ran out together before the first game. It
was hard to explain then, it's kind of hard to
explain now, but everybody I talked to says the same thing.
(16:56):
Dick Ever Saw, the president of NBC Sports back then,
was sitting in the stay ends with David Stern, and
he told me years later that he had chills. I
remember looking in the stands and locating my sons and thinking, well,
whatever they will later hold against me, and let's not
go there. At least I got them to this. We
were all curious who would come out first, who would
(17:17):
carry the flag, who would be in that first starting lineup,
And don't think the players didn't think about it. Also,
here's Larry Bird, Scotty's will start. You know, it didn't
matter Mary started that first game. Yeah, that matter doesn't matter.
And as probably the Vegas line would have had it,
(17:39):
Magic came out first carrying the flag. Bird was second
in line, and when they hit the floor, the Cuban
team stopped practicing and lined up to stare and take photos.
As with Oscar Schmidt, their goal was not so much
to play the game, but to say that they were there.
(18:00):
And so the next step for the Dream Team was
a trip to Monte Carlo before the Olympics. Hey, that's
where everyone goes to get in some grunt work, right
Monte Carlo. See you next time, when I'll give you
the deets behind the Immortal inter Squad Scrimmage, the greatest
game nobody ever saw. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed
(18:25):
The Dream Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever
you get your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written
and hosted by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and
Scott Waxman, Executive producer for I Heart Media, is shown
to turn. The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts
(18:47):
original series in association with I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen into your favorite shows.
This is the Dream Team Tapes, a Diversion Podcasts original
series in association with I Heart Radio. This is the
story of the United States Olympic basketball team that won
gold in Barcelona, known worldwide as the Dream Team. Welcome
(00:24):
to episode five of the Dream Team Tapes. I'm Jack McCallum.
We have moved from San Diego, where the Dream Team
completed a week of practice, and on to Portland, Oregon,
for something called the Tournament of the Americas, where the
US team had to qualify for the Olympics. Portland was
the capital of the basketball world in the summer of
their beloved Blazers took the Jordan's Bulls to six games.
(00:47):
The NBA Draft that produced Shaquille O'Neal and Christian Latner,
the two college stars who were the only players considered
to join the Dream Team from college, was held there
ten days after the finals ended, and then the Dream
Team arrived for their first official public demonstration of well
worldwide dominance. I would venture to say that all of
(01:08):
us who were around for the weeks of action in
Portland had a great time in that great city. It
was an excellent series. It included the famous Jordan's shrug
game in Chicago, when he hit six first half three pointers,
the majority of them on Clyde Drexler, and at one
point just shrugged the Magic Johnson, who was courtside on
the broadcast team, as if to say, hell, I can't
(01:30):
explain it either. The draft was pretty interesting too. After
the Minnesota Timberwolves selected late number three, there was a
chorus of booze, which prompted Laterner's mother, Bonnie, a sometimes
outspoken woman who like so many moms, loved her son
and wanted to protect him, blurted out to the press,
huh that was the fifty family and friends Shakiel took
(01:53):
with him to Portland. Christian wasn't happy with her. Hey,
we've all been there at one time or another. All
other things about Portland's It had one of the great
all time bookstores, Pals and the peaceful Willamet River, and
one of the all time great bars, the veritable Quandre
hang out for the media who had covered the NBA
Finals and hung around to cover the Dream Team. You
(02:15):
went into the VQ, you ordered a craft beer, and
the bartenders would put on anything you asked. For one night,
it was Stevie Ray Vaughan. One of the overlooked blues immortals.
Stevie Ray has gone now a helicopter crash in Wisconsin
in n hours after he and his band had opened
a show for Eric Clapton and a loss. So is
(02:37):
the veritable quandary, a victim of market forces. Nihil st
at tarranum, nothing last forever. I'm not sure what a
Latin accent should sound like, but that was probably not
a good one. So why were we in Portland? Well,
as I said earlier, the Americans had to qualify since
they had finished third in and the qualifier been scheduled
(03:00):
for March in Brazil, in other words, at a time
when the NBA season was still going on. So the
NBA and USA Basketball arm twisted FIBA into a schedule
change and bought the broadcast rights for somewhere around four
million dollars from a Brazilian who owned them and re
christened the thing the Tournament of the Americas. Now. The
(03:22):
money for the broadcast was put up by the United
States Olympic Committee, which had a surplus from the Olympics
in Los Angeles, which was quite possibly the last games
that made economic sense for a host country. The U
s O c resented it. They were not accustomed to
putting up money for millionaire professional athletes, and that resentment
(03:43):
would prove to be a subplot in Portland's that would
continue through Barcelona because initially, all I say that, you know,
I don't want to be a part of this whole business.
You know, I played a game for the game, for
the batch you had that was totally against profession basketball
to was playing because I knew the business despect there
was coming around. Yeah, and it is hard to get
(04:05):
the true deliberic experience and you're sitting there were about
everybody's making money and you gotta you know, you gotta
please this guy, you know, please his company. Yet it
may not be the same line to what a contract. Okay,
irony alert here Jordan, who at that time was earning
about thirty five million dollars in endorsements and is still,
(04:25):
by the way, earning about a hundred and forty five
million dollars even though he hasn't played since two thousand
and three, talking about the unpleasantness of mixing business and basketball.
But Jordan's and most of the other Dream teamers felt
for the first time in Portland's how many fingers were
reaching into the pie, and Jordan's didn't really need the
(04:46):
Olympics for exposure the way other players might have. It's
not like his profile wasn't amplified by the Dream Team experience,
but it wasn't a major consideration. Here's David Falk, Jordan's
Asian at the time, and the and largely responsible for
creating the Jordan's marketing monster back in you know, gave
(05:07):
him a broader stage and probably set the tone maybe
for moving into other markets, you know, brand Jordan's later
on down the road. But he didn't do it for
marketing reasons. I think they've even enter to the egration.
I knew that it would have a you know, positive impact,
but not a not a major impact. For months, there
had been pitched, behind the scenes battles among sponsors and
(05:28):
retailers trying to make official deals with the NBA to
make money off these guys. And these weren't exactly junior
varsity companies. They were companies like A T and T,
Coca Cola, McDonald's, and Visa. The stakes were enormously high.
The real battles took place over whose likeness could be
put on what product. Remember that all these guys, but Jordan's, Magic,
(05:52):
Barkley and Bird in particular, had all kinds of endorsement
deals and contracts themselves. What would they be violating by
wearing or endorsed s a uso C sanctioned product that
was in competition with one of their personal sponsors? To wit,
what Jordan's Mr Nike tacitly endorsed reebak Ah. Jordan and
(06:13):
his agent David Falk thought they had a deal worked
out that would take care of it. But the deal,
in the immortal words of William Goldman, the great Hollywood screenwriter,
was apparently set, just not set set. We'll see how
that plays out. In Barcelona, the players were astounded at
what their responsibilities were, particularly in the area of signing basketballs.
(06:36):
A couple of them told me they signed literally thousands
of balls because each deal seemed to come accompanied by
signing basketballs, which always struck me as crazy because if
you've seen a pro athletes sign at least most of them,
you can't make out their signature from ancient sanskript. Here
is Steve Mills on how bad the situation actually was.
(06:57):
At that time. He was working for the league and
was in charge of special events for the Dream Team
and was a close confident of many of the players.
The biggest that actually remember that I think almost blew
up the team was the issue was sort of the
literal actual with the usc UM and was the first
(07:18):
time when there's same there as a woman I believe
who who was an act was an actuate but at
a different sport. It was one of the U s
C at the time, and came in and talked to
the players their marketing obligations and the things they couldn't
do and the thing they could do. And here's Barkley
on the same subject. Was they got angry at h Hey,
(07:44):
we came here, We're not getting any money. And you know,
Clil Michael is the man at that point as far
as endorth a Golden night, and we have a meeting
and a couple of representative like coming him like, hey,
don't be an asshole, like you know how Michael, excuse me. See,
(08:05):
the Dream teamers were supposed to get some kind of
share of all the revenue pie and a playing salary,
something that added up to around seventy five dollars to
the best of anyone's memory. In other words, pocket change,
but hey, pocket change his pocket change. I tore my
car apart the other day looking for seventy eight cents.
(08:26):
But in step the ultimate diplomat, Dave Gabbett, who himself
had been armed twisted to get the players to give
up that money for the good of the country and
the coffers of USA basketball. Here's Larry Bird. Dave came
to me with the idea and get out of here,
you're crazy. Just more Bertie, and went through the whole fame,
(08:46):
and he talked to Magic. Of course Magic Sill's Larry
doing it. And he went to Michael, Michael, I'm in,
and he went the other guys, and Day came to
me today, we're okay, enough enough, let's it away from
business and talk about what else was going on in Portland.
A great introductory party by Nike for one thing. I
(09:07):
brought along my wife and two sons who were fifteen
and twelve, a great fan age, and introduced them around
to the point that I wasn't being an ass and
as usual, got the best response from Charles Barkley. You
seem like nice boys, Barkley said, putting his arm around him.
So with a father like you have, I would run
away right now. One of the subplots was how nice
(09:28):
this was for Clyde Drexler, who was among the last
two Dream teamers picked and was only a couple of
weeks removed from getting tortured by Jordan in the finals.
No matter how much he hated it, and he hated it,
Clyde could never quite get passed being the poor man's
Michael Jordan's and his team could never quite get past
(09:48):
being talented but not a closer. It had started in
the ninets against the Pistons and was solidified by the
six game lost to the Bulls in ninety two, and
direct Or took endless amounts of crap from his fellow
Dream teamers. Here's Bird, I feel sorry for him some
days in the basket sort of telling played on the
Dumas team. Still, the team was tight. Relationships were starting
(10:13):
to build, the most unlikely being a friendship between Bird
and Patrick Ewing. They were together so much that the
team started calling Ewing Harry so they could brand them
Harry and Larry. In every single interview I did for
the Dream Team. Somebody brought this up. The players got
such a kick out of it. It was in Portland,
also that the real Alpha Dog started a late night
(10:35):
ritual of a card game called Tunk, which Barkley described
as an old Negro game from the South. The main
players were Barkley, Jordan's Magic, and Pipping. So if there's
any Tonk fans out there, just think how great it
would have been to get in that game. Then again,
you would have needed to bring money, lots of money.
(11:05):
In the dream Team second game, in the Tournament of
the America's Stockton and Michael Jordan collided on a defensive sequence,
and though not many people saw it, Stockton came away
with an undisplaced fracture of the right fibula. Most everybody
else thought, well, so what, Stockton's great, but the Dream
Team hardly needs him. But Chuck Daily, the Prince of Pessimism,
(11:28):
who was already imagining if he would have to appear
before Congress the Dream Team lost a game, was worried
about the point guard position. Chuck honestly wasn't sure that
Magic could handle the load alone, particularly defensively ridiculous in
retrospective course, But and more, much more than was made public,
(11:48):
Chuck really thought that Stockton should be replaced. Just got
the actually down to eating us. He brought baplace. Daily
was even a little pissed at Stockton because he clung
to his spot. So Chuck convened a meeting. Okay, at
dinner meeting at a great Italian restaurant in Portland. Matt Dobek,
his trusted public relations man, was there, and so was
(12:11):
assistant p J. Car Lessimo, who was in charge of restaurants.
P J was still is one of basketball's great restaurant guys.
You gotta have guys that know every great restaurant, No,
every owner and major d at every great restaurant. Anyway,
the subject of the meeting was should we replace Stockton?
And if we decide we should, who are you going
(12:32):
to call? Here's the late Matt Dobek can make it work.
We're going to call Joe. How in case you didn't
get it, that Joe was Joe Dumars. So there it
was the specter of Isaiah Thomas all over again. Daily
could not get out from under it. And the best
guest from Matt, and he told me this before he died,
(12:53):
was that Chuck would have given the call to Joe Dumars,
not Isaiah Thomas Jordan for one was watching these developments
with interest and some degree of ankst. When doctor now,
I'm already committed ship. You know, I checked into the
saying anything to you know, idea, you're gonna keep it
(13:16):
the way it wants to take. But he came to
do so, he had to leave it. He had to
keep stocking on the team even when it broke legs
to the place. Eventually, Chuck decided to let it go,
take the time until Barcelona for Stockton to get better,
And I was glad. I love Dumars as a player,
as a person too, but I'm glad it didn't happen.
(13:38):
That would have just been too cruel. Isaiah passed over
not once, but twice, and for a teammate who really
wasn't even a point guard. And for Chuck it was
actually better from a playing time standpoint. Since Bird's back
was hurting so bad and there were always other assorted injuries,
not having stocked and available at all made it easier
(13:59):
on daily to slide players in and out. One more
thing about Isaiah, we never got along all that great.
He was one of the few people who turned down
an interview requests for the Dream Team book. He told
me not long ago at a Hall of Fame gathering
that he thought I had never treated him or the
Pistons fairly in print, but then he shook my hand.
I respected him for that, and I respected the way
(14:22):
he handled the Dream Team snub. One of the things
he did around the time of the selection process was
called John Stockton's father. Here is Stockton talking about it.
I think I should have been and I was the
clear artt I guess you know what people thought. He
knit And in case you didn't get it, at the end,
there John said, and he called my dad. That means
(14:45):
Isaiah Thomas called up John Stockton's father. And when Stockton
was inducted into the Hall of Fame, incidentally, the player
he chose to walk up with him to the stage
was one Isaiah Thomas. Okay, is there anything else I've
(15:08):
forgotten about Portland'? Oh? Yes. There were actually other teams there,
and there were basketball games. For the record, these were
the other competitors, in order of how they finished behind
the US were Venezuela, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Canada, Argentina, Mexico, Panama, Cuba,
and Uruguay. It was a gas interacting with the players
(15:30):
on the other teams from the beginning. They just seemed
to get it. They just understood that they were fodder
for the Dream Team stand ins, second bananas, and they
were fine with it. They embraced it. They understood that
when the US played, it was less like a traditional
athletic competition and more like free form theater with a
set ending. You were going to get your ass kicked,
(15:52):
but let's do some improv along the way that we
know why we're here. Attitude was best exemplified by Oscar
Schmidt of Brazil. You have to understand this, Oscar was
a legit player. He was the best player in the
tournament not on the Dream Team, and at one point
in his career several years earlier, many scouts believe that
(16:13):
he was a legit NBA prospect. And here was Oscar
talking before the game, and well, let's called his goals
for the Tournament of the Americas. For Larry Party is
my idold Michael Jordan, Jason Solder, I would like to
have all their age. What a rallying cry. Let's go
get their autographs. But look, we got it, we got
(16:35):
it back then. You weren't going to beat the Dream Team,
So go with the flow, enjoy the experience. I know
I did. The one moment that I remember more than
all others in that summer was the first time the
Dream Team ran out together before the first game. It
was hard to explain then, it's kind of hard to
explain now, but everybody I talked to says the same thing.
(16:56):
Dick Ever Saw, the president of NBC Sports back then,
was sitting in the stay ends with David Stern, and
he told me years later that he had chills. I
remember looking in the stands and locating my sons and thinking, well,
whatever they will later hold against me, and let's not
go there. At least I got them to this. We
were all curious who would come out first, who would
(17:17):
carry the flag, who would be in that first starting lineup,
And don't think the players didn't think about it. Also,
here's Larry Bird, Scotty's will start. You know, it didn't
matter Mary started that first game. Yeah, that matter doesn't matter.
And as probably the Vegas line would have had it,
(17:39):
Magic came out first carrying the flag. Bird was second
in line, and when they hit the floor, the Cuban
team stopped practicing and lined up to stare and take photos.
As with Oscar Schmidt, their goal was not so much
to play the game, but to say that they were there.
(18:00):
And so the next step for the Dream Team was
a trip to Monte Carlo before the Olympics. Hey, that's
where everyone goes to get in some grunt work, right
Monte Carlo. See you next time, when I'll give you
the deets behind the Immortal inter Squad Scrimmage, the greatest
game nobody ever saw. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed
(18:25):
The Dream Team Tapes, please follow, rate, and review wherever
you get your podcasts. The Dream Team Tapes is written
and hosted by Jack McCallum. Executive producers Mark Francis and
Scott Waxman, Executive producer for I Heart Media, is shown
to turn. The Dream Team Tapes is a Diversion Podcasts
(18:47):
original series in association with I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen into your favorite shows.
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